‘Hurricane’ hits Boyden Road

“Clara Barton” aka Rabecka Miller is on her way to St. Vincent Hospital with paramedics John Sola and Keith Marshall.
Joyce Roberts photo It was a made-for-the-movies disaster – a hurricane hits hard, electricity goes off, emergency generators catch fire and the staff at Wachusett Extended Care on Boyden Road has to manage the evacuation of 38 residents.

It was just a drill, but Oriol Health Care employees treated the June 26 exercise like the real thing, under the eyes of Russell Phillips LLC, a Connecticut company that specializes in fire and emergency management for health care facilities.

Staff members at the facility spent one and a half months preparing for the drill, according to Debby Westerback, community relations director for Oriol Health Care, owners of Wachusett Extended Care.

“It’s the medical complexities of the residents that complicate the picture,” Westerback said.

Some of the residents need wheelchairs or are on ventilators. To accommodate them, the WEC staff researched Central Massachusetts facilities to find the ones that best meet the level of care that each patient requires.

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

At one time, it would have been standard procedure to evacuate the residents to whatever hospitals could take them, but no longer.

“A hospital is not a good place to be if you are not a sick person,” said Sandy Mahoney, Oriol Health Care administrator.

Fifteen area facilities, including Oriol’s Oakdale Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in West Boylston, Lifecare in Auburn and St. Vincent of Worcester, took part in the drill. The facilities are all part of the Mass. Mutual Aid plan for emergency preparedness.

As staff members took on the identities of Wachusett Extended Care residents, they were given medical packets listing their conditions, needed equipment and pseudo-medications to help in their role playing.

Scott Barry, a Russell Phillips’ consultant, called plays throughout the day, telling participants that they were dealing with eight inches of rain, 84 degree temperatures and 82 mile per hour winds. All in all, it was a wet, hot, sticky, dangerous mess for transporting people with complex care needs.

Members of Holden police, fire and emergency medical services were on hand to evaluate the proceedings.

“We’re looking for a streamlined process, that’s as organized as possible,” Fire Lt. David Chapin said. “Drills get people in the mode of who to contact and to see how fast you can move patients out. It also helps to see how quickly resources from other places can get here.”

Transportation requirements were set at one car, vans for nine wheelchairs, seven basic service ambulances and 21 advanced life support ambulances.

The plan involved moving the “residents” from their rooms to a staging area, and on to the transport vehicles.

Before being moved out, the residents were given ID bracelets that were scanned along with information on where they were going.

This process took longer than staff anticipated, Mahoney said, but it’s crucial to get it right.

“The key part is tracking them or ‘closing the loop.’ We have to verify residents arrived where they were supposed to and make sure the other facilities got who they expected. We also have to notify families.” she said.

In the middle of evacuation, the monkey wrenches were thrown. Phone calls from a mock Fox News reporter and a resident’s family member calling to find out where he was moved, posed additional challenges for Wachusett Extended Care staff.

It was good practice, Mahoney said.

“We have to make sure we’re giving accurate information to the right people in an appropriate time frame,” she said.

A follow up conference call with Russell Phillips LLC gave top grades to the Wachusett Extended Care staff, she said. They noted that the team worked well with outside resources and got crucial support from town police, fire and emergency responders.